Milk & Diabetes

“Genes do not determine disease on their own. Genes function only by being activated, or expressed, and nutrition plays a critical role in determining which genes, good and bad, are expressed.”

-T. Colin Campbell

Research shows that just about every disease is, in fact, genetic. Chances are that you may have, or know someone that has a history of heart disease in your/their family, or breast cancer, diabetes, obesity, ADHD, high blood pressure, cancer…and the list goes on. Doctors and scientists spend millions of dollar per year trying to figure out how to “turn-off” these genes to prevent these diseases. However, scientists have some very powerful evidence that the expression of these genes are manipulated by our food and our environment.

In the news this week studies done in Canada show a strong link between pesticides and ADHD…as I said in my post a few days ago, there are also many that believe artificial coloring plays a role in behavioral problems…both things are nutritional and environmental.

I was trying to free up some of the DVR space before the baseball game (my eats at the bottom of the post) –I realized have no time to watch all of the shows I like, hence the 500 things I have taped! 87% full tonight! Flyers and Phillies are the priority so everything lately must get taped. However, before the games started I caught up on Gossip Girl & Medium…

Medium made me cry :'(
“Alison” was dreaming about a lil piglet that talked… and the story was based on an animal rights coalition that sent someone undercover to “investigate” the treatment of animals at a farm…and this cute lil’ piggy baby had to say goodbye to his mommy, it was very sad–anyone see it and know what I am talking about (so I don’t have to feel so lame)?

Anyway…it had me thinking about how much better I have feltsince I cut out meat(especially that I haven’t eaten pork in 16 yrs) and dairy (occasional slip up with the cheese, but I mostly stick with goats, no cows). I was also thinking about how annoyed I was to find out how big of a role the dairy associated had in constructing the USDA food pyramid…and I remembered something that I read in The China Study about Type I Diabetes and Cow’s Milk:

Type I, or juvenile diabetes, is an awful, devastating auto-immune disease that impacts about 1 in every 400 children in the U.S. alone(*ADA). I was thinking about how scary the rise of all of these “genetic” diseases in children are…wand how I already know too many people who’ve had to unfortunately endure some serious health issues within their families. It’s become a very scary world.

The China Study(a great read) suggests that there is very strong, well-documented evidence that the protein indairy milk may have the ability to initiate the disease based on certain factors…

To sum it up; the research pretty much says if a child is not breast fed, or taken off breast milk too early and given dairy milk in formula, these infants may not fully digest the amino acids in the milk causing undigested protein fragments to be absorbed in the blood. This will result in the immune system recognizing it as an “invader” and will go about it’s job to destroy them. However, these “invaders” (amino acids in the milk) look exactly the same as the cells in the pancreas that make insulin….and the immune system, unable to tell the difference, destroys both, eliminating the child’s ability to produce insulin. This is based on studies done in diabetic children around the globe.

Some of the most remarkable findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and a recent story in TIME Magazine covered the same topic.

The book makes a very powerful statement about the process…

“Cow’s milk may cause one the most devastating diseases that can befall a child. For obvious reasons, this is one of the most contentious issues in nutrition today.”

….there’s too much at stake to start suggesting that one of the most devastating diseases impacting children is linked to cow’s milk…The controversy & economical impact would be profound. There’s always too much money to be made. This is very unfortunate.

Breakfast…oats cooked in water…added 1/2 scoop of Vega Vanilla Chai protein and some almond milk and cinnamon (had to get more banana’s today)–eaten in the car because I hit the snooze button for 25 straight minutes this morning….rain + dark + cold + snuggling Munchkin = me not able to get out of bed at the time I planned….

My entire morning was driving to clients in the POURING rain…got to Whole foods on the flip side (Thank GOODNESS for underground parking!)

I got there around 12:45 so I noshed on an Apple Pie “Laredo” bar while I shopped….